Westwood Farmers Market Closes at Veterans Administration

After 17 years, the Westwood Farmers Market opened for customers for the last time Thursday on the Veterans Administration campus.

Announced last week and posted on its website, the closing was said to reflect a series of setbacks, including construction, signage and parking obstacles that have left the market with fewer visitors than it needs to remain in operation. However, market coordinator Mark Wall and on-site manager Jennifer Ford are in the process of looking at other possible locations.

Located at the Veterans' Garden in the West L.A. Veterans Administration complex, the Westwood Farmers Market said in a statement on its website that the current situation is “not survivable.” Revenue is down 60 percent and the market's visibility has become an issue, Ford said.

“You cannot see us from the street, so without signage from any major street, then people forget we’re there,” Ford added. “They assume we’re closed.”

According to Ralph Tillman, chief of communications and external affairs at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, however, signage is allowed and posted on street entrances to the facility.

“If you come onto our campus, off of Wilshire, off Constitution,” Tillman said, “there are directional signs at every street entrance, pointing you the right way to the Farmers Market.”

“Do we let them put up a large billboard? No, we don’t allow billboards on our campus,” he added. “We’re not an advertising company. We’re a health care facility.”

Open on Thursdays from 12-6 p.m. and tucked into a long block north of Wilshire Boulevard and just west of the 405 freeway, the market is hidden from major streets and also has been affected by the freeway construction that has routinely snarled traffic in the area.

In addition to the construction, Ford also said that the closing of a pedestrian sidewalk north of the market, as well as parking restrictions from the VA, have crippled business and caused the number of market vendors to dwindle.

“They can’t afford to come anymore,” Ford said. “And one of our farmers who has been with the original market for 17 years is pulling out. So when I start losing my farmers, it’s not a market anymore.”

Tillman countered that parking is not an issue.

“They have parking assigned directly adjacent to the market," he said. "For the term of their agreement, they have always had accessible parking, better than most farmers’ markets, I would say.”

“We receive no revenue from this agreement,” he added. “We have never charged them rent.”

Eliki Olive Oil owner Alice Eddy, who has been a vendor at the market since its 2006 move from the original Westwood Village location, has observed a marked downturn in business.

“I noticed that the money was going down. It wasn’t very busy,” she said, “but we were still supporting the market because there were customers still going down there.”

Customers like West L.A. resident Bashka Selwyn, who said she frequents the Westwood Farmers Market in addition to two others closer to her home. As a working mother of two young children, Selwyn said that the Westwood Farmers Market might have had another obstacle for some customers.

“The afternoon hours are not too good for me,” she said, “especially now that I have children in elementary school. I need to pick them up, and they’re not really up for going to the farmers market on a school day.”

The market does serve as a convenient resource for VA employees, who can stay on the facility’s grounds to buy produce or a meal.

“The negative impact of the market closing for us,” Tillman said, “would be the fact that our employees, who are probably the core business, will not have access to a farmers’ market on campus.”

Asked if she noticed any competition from the Wednesday Westwood Village Farmers’ Market on Broxton Avenue, Ford responded with a definite no, noting that the markets are held on different days. Merging the two markets, she also said, would not work for the same reason. That is, farmers and vendors already have their schedules set and could therefore not accommodate a move to Wednesdays.

“Farmers’ markets are like families, and these people have been together forever,” Ford said, “and it’s really, really sad that there’s no answer.”

Ford said moving the market to another location is a possibility, but a timeline for the move has not been determined.

“A new location requires interest, access, parking, bathrooms, power, plumbing,” Ford said. “There are a couple of places under consideration, but it’s the very beginning stages, and we don’t know how likely it is, and we’re not really at liberty to announce where.”